Quickie Interview: Megadrive’s Johnny Pemberton

MTV gave up on music videos a long time ago, but that doesn’t mean there’s nothing worth watching on the channel anymore. Take the new show Megadrive. The basic premise: comedy up-and-comer Johnny Pemberton drives the craziest machinery on the planet, and juvenile hijinks and destruction ensue. It’s the show that the American Top Gear […]

December 1, 2010 AT 3:44 PM
By
Michael Austin

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MTV gave up on music videos a long time ago, but that doesn’t mean there’s nothing worth watching on the channel anymore. Take the new show Megadrive. The basic premise: comedy up-and-comer Johnny Pemberton drives the craziest machinery on the planet, and juvenile hijinks and destruction ensue. It’s the show that the American Top Gear ought to be. But don’t take our word for it, find out for yourself on Thursdays at 11:00 or online at mtv.com.

We recently spoke to Johnny about throwing up in a stunt plane, his love of manual transmissions, and whether or not he has learned anything from his near-death experiences.

C/D: Any chance you’re related to the John Pemberton who invented Coca-Cola?

JP: Not at all. If I were related to him I would probably be on my own private island somewhere, you know, eating mangos and being fed by naked women because I’d be filthy rich. But no, no relation whatsoever.

C/D: Well it was possible that your show had some kind of rich-playboy-with-a-death-wish angle, trying to find something worth living for.

JP: It could have been, yeah. But I think they all do that because they have nothing else to think about. It still was like that, though, because we got to do a lot of stuff that I would never, ever get to do in my life. There were definitely a lot of first- and last-time experiences.

C/D: What’s your daily driver? And is it true that you failed your driving test a few times?

JP: I did, I failed it three times, and one of those was because I was downshifting improperly. The instructor didn’t like the way I was downshifting, which to me is a personal preference. But I drive a 2001 Honda Accord.

C/D: So is your Accord a manual transmission?

JP: Mine’s not, but I learned to drive on a BMW 325ix, and that was a manual.

C/D: We have a campaign here at a Car and Driver called Save the Manuals that’s our way of increasing awareness of manual transmissions.

JP: I love them. I would love to have a manual. I use my automatic like a manual—I’ll flip it into neutral all the time to do my bogus hypermiling—but would much rather have a manual than an automatic. It’s less boring.

C/D: How close did you come to actually dying during filming of Megadrive?

JP: It was two or three times that I thought if something changed just a little bit there might have been the loss of a limb or something, but luckily there were no injuries at all.

C/D: What are some of your favorite moments from the show?

JP: There are so many things—every vehicle is so unique that it’s really hard to pick my favorite child—but, you know, they’re not children, they’re giant machines. There is some stuff that sticks out. The very first day I drove the Ariel Atom, and that was incredible because I really had no idea what to expect and the thing scared the shit out of me because it accelerated so fast. I thought I was going to die for sure when I was in the passenger seat, and then when I was driving it I managed to give it too much gas out of a turn and went careening off into a barrier. We got hung up on a bunch of tires, and if I had been a few inches off we would have smashed into the metal barrier. It probably would have wrecked the Atom and who knows what else. There were a lot of very lucky things that happened.

C/D: On the show you ask these guys really crazy questions, and their responses seem really genuine. How much of that is editing and how much of it is you saying something and having the guy just stare at you?

JP: It’s a little bit of both, but for the most part these guys are not the type of people that are used to talking to anyone about anything other than what size wrench you use to take off a manifold or all these other technical things. Some of them are not really people persons. So I think sometimes they don’t know how to react to me. I feel like it’s mutual in the way that we make each other uncomfortable, because they’re taking me on these rides where I’m scared shitless because I’m totally out of control and have no idea how the thing works. And I think it works the other way around where I’m talking their ear off about crap that they don’t really feel comfortable talking about half the time.

C/D: Speaking of scared shitless, are there any episodes where people can look forward to seeing you hurl again or did that only happen in the first episode?

JP: That was the one, man, that was the one time. I still say it wasn’t because of the aerobatics, it was because of the acrobatic smoke that they use to make the planes look cool when they’re tumbling. That’s what got me, that’s what made me sick. That and the huge lunch of fried chicken, which was a huge mistake on my part. We flew in a Czechoslovakian fighter jet later that day and I was so scared I was going to puke everywhere. And it’s a little bigger deal to puke in that thing, because it’s slightly more expensive and there are all kinds of things that can go wrong. But I held on, and we did 6- to 7-g turns, which was intense as hell, but I did not throw up any more.

C/D: Are there any lessons you learned that apply to everyday driving?

JP: One thing is that you’re only half as good of a driver as you think you are, in all circumstances. I think any time someone touts their driving ability, just cut it in half and then realize that’s how it really is. As far as other lessons, I think that speed is your friend in a lot of situations. A lot of these vehicles that I had to drive where if you go too slow, that’s when you mess up and break the thing. That doesn’t always apply, so you have to use that in a limited way, but sometimes it’s good to go fast.

C/D: Will there be a second season, and what’s next for you after Megadrive?

JP: We shot 12 episodes and we have seen episodes on the books, so we have a little way to go to see them all. As far as what’s next, I don’t really know. We’ll see if I can get a job test-driving for Lamborghini or something. I don’t think there’s anything in the works as far as car-related stuff just yet because a lot people won’t let me drive now after seeing the show. A lot of those guys on the show were hesitant. Generally, I think they were more scared than I was, because they’re expert at driving and they know their machines super-well—they’ve built the thing practically from the ground up—and then they have to hand it over to me and sit in the passenger seat and give up control altogether. They don’t even have a little brake pedal like a driving instructor does. Some of them, you could tell, were scared as hell—for good reason, too.

C/D: Can you talk any trash on the Top Gear guys, have you seen that show?

JP: Yeah I’ve seen it a bunch. The director of Megadrive, Scott Weintrob, directed one season of Top Gear. He’s a British guy.

C/D: So you’re kind of on the level with the Top Gear guys now, at least the U.S. ones.

JP: I suppose. That’s the thing—I do know something about cars. I used to read Car and Driver all the time as a kid before I realized I don’t have enough money to buy the cars that I really like.

C/D: It sounds like you should try being an automotive journalist. We can’t afford the cars either.

JP: Yeah, you guys get to drive all that stuff, isn’t that the idea?

C/D: Yeah.

JP: I guess that’s the same idea as Megadrive in a way, where I get to do a certain amount of destruction that I like to do and not have to pay for it. But I think we’ll give Top Gear a good run for their money, because it’s way crazier than anything I know they’ll do. So we’ll see what happens.